


Bergamo

by Fabrisse



Category: The 4400
Genre: F/M, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-10
Updated: 2010-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-08 20:42:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fabrisse/pseuds/Fabrisse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After season 4, Diana apologizes and Marco forgives her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bergamo

Six weeks after the Promicin epidemic, Seattle was beginning, just barely to recover.

Marco had watched a friend die in a split-second. He had helped identify and sequester the dead. He had gone home with Joanna and realized she would never be the woman he was in love with. So he had gone to a cemetery and volunteered to help bury the dead.

There were questions. Every surviving NTAC agent in Seattle, except for Diana and Tom, were P-positive. The government wasn't sure it could trust its agents any more, but most of them came in every day and tried to do their jobs. It was tough. The theory room was five strong when Joanna was hired. Now, with the deaths of PJ and Stewart, it was just him and Brady from the early days. Joanna had requested a transfer to another department with a deeper focus on the hard sciences. Somehow, Marco hadn't had any problem signing off on it.

At the moment, he and Brady were trying to find a pattern to the way promicin-positives developed abilities. So many abilities seemed to fulfill a deep psychological need in the person who had them. Brady wanted a cool ability, and it had developed almost literally. Brady controlled temperature, his own and anything he touched – including air. Marco could tell how Brady was feeling by whether he had to put on a sweater or peel off layers. After Danny Farrell's funeral, Marco had gone to The 4400 Center and spoken to Shawn. Danny had wanted everyone to know about him; his ability had killed, at last count, twenty thousand people. Statistically speaking there were approximately another twenty thousand people developing unusual abilities. In reality, nearly a fifth of the p-positive survivors had attempted suicide and many of them had succeeded.

Although there was less than a decade between them in age, Marco became Shawn's father confessor that day. He couldn't tell Kyle or his Uncle Tommy about Danny's last day on earth. Eighteen months ago, Shawn would have turned to Jordan, but that relationship would take much longer to repair – if it could be fixed. Marco was still debating whether to enter the full range of Shawn's ability into the NTAC database. The world knew Shawn Farrell the healer. Marco knew Shawn Farrell the killer. He had neither judged nor blamed the man. One death to help thousands, maybe millions? A death his brother was begging him to grant? He only hoped his words would allow Shawn to heal himself.

The air in the room became pleasantly warm, so Marco looked up just in time to hear Brady greet their acting director. Meghan Doyle was asked to step down, and, with Tom Baldwin still on compassionate leave, Homeland Security had requested Diana Skouris take over the role until they decided whether to keep the Seattle branch of NTAC or ship them wholesale to Guantanamo once the quarantine was lifted. Marco knew which way he was betting.

"Director." They'd been working together for five years, and Brady still blushed when he looked at Diana.

"This isn't official." Diana seemed a little flustered. "I just wanted to …" Her glance strayed to Marco.

"Of course, it was just about time for me to grab more coffee. Want any, boss? Director?"

Marco gave a little hand wave. "I'm fine. I'm sure Diana has better coffee than we're getting hidden in her office." He smiled at Diana on that and was surprised to see a small smile playing on her lips too.

They watched Brady leave. When the silence had gone on a little too long, Marco broke it. "It's good to see you. You haven't been down here in awhile."

Diana let out a long breath. "We've had such a hard time keeping order, that we haven't had a chance to form a theory about anything. Are people reporting their abilities?"

Marco went in to Theory mode and gave a nod. "Everyone in the building who has developed an ability has reported it. There are fifteen people, besides yourself and Tom, who haven't reported. When we followed up, three of them had the same elevated levels of ubiquinone that you had, so they were immune. Another five were out on the day of the outbreak and lived far enough out of town that they probably weren't exposed. We're keeping an eye on them. The rest probably have abilities, but damned if we can figure out what they are."

Diana nodded along with him. "They may have dream abilities like P.J. did. Or they may be natural immunes. We could…"

"I'm way ahead of you, Diana. People are already running comparisons on their DNA both with people who are promicin positive, and those who aren't. You want to get back into the lab and dig around yourself?"

"I didn't come here to talk about work."

"Ah."

"Maia's staying in Promise City with friends of hers tonight." When she saw Marco's eyebrows go up, she continued, "They were friends before the epidemic. They've reported their abilities and want to meet others who have already learned to control theirs."

Marco perched on the edge of his desk. "I can see Maia as an ambassador. Better than I can see her as a rebellious teenager. She's thirteen next month, yes?"

"Yes."

"And her visions?"

"She confessed to me that she lied to Jordan Collier about a vision. I don't think she's lied to me. Not yet."

"Teenager. I'll bet you'll be the only mother on the block hoping her daughter is lying about boys."

Diana began to pace. "You were the only person she mentioned while we were in Spain. Well, April once in passing. But she asked about you several times."

"That must have been awkward. Or did she wait until Ben was gone for the day."

"Mostly. The one time she did ask in front of him, he got very quiet."

"I'm certain you reassured him there was no need for jealousy."

She turned to look at him directly. "I don't really know what the drug was trying to tell me. At the time, I was so certain."

"I always wondered: if your ex was such an emotionally abusive jerk, why did you listen to him when you were hallucinating?"

"Because you scared me to death."

Marco looked away and nodded. "I think I know, but may I ask why I scared you?"

"You were serious. You flirted; you have a great sense of humor. But fundamentally, you were serious about me, about a future together, about be willing to be a parent to a girl who's over thirty years older than I am." Diana was waving her arms and beginning to shout.

"I didn't mean to back you into a corner." Marco wasn't certain whether he meant then or by asking the question now.

Diana walked toward him, and Marco backed away from her. He felt his back press against the wall. "You loved me."

He looked her dead in the eye. "It's not in the past tense. No matter how big a fool it makes me."

She reached for his glasses, but he stopped her hand and pulled her close. "I need to be able to see."

"For a kiss?"

"For an experiment." He stared over her shoulder at a picture on his desk and held her tightly against his body. He felt the wall behind his back change as the brightly lit underground room turned in to an open piazza.

"Where are we?"

"Bergamo. It's after midnight here."

"Your ability is teleportation?"

He gave one of his half nods. "The parameters are limited. I can get us back to Seattle in about the time it took us to get here, but we'll be right back in the theory room. I can't take you to your apartment, for instance. And I got us here by looking at the photo of it on my desk."

"If I had a picture of my apartment, could you take me back there directly?"

"We haven't tried that experiment yet. And I don't know whether, if I were to look at a picture of the Pantheon, I could get us to Rome and then back to Seattle, or if we'd have to detour back through Bergamo. And the experiment after that is whether I can use a painting – and would that put time travel into the equation? – or if it's only photographs and only the present day."

Diana's voice became low and confidential. "I have to say that is the second greatest ability I've heard of."

He chuckled. "What's the first greatest?"

"Shawn's healing."

"Mine has fewer chances to be abused. That should get me a couple of extra coolness points." Marco gently stroked her back and pulled her closer.

"I'm asking you, right now…"

He removed his glasses and handed them to her.

Diana laughed and pushed up to kiss him. It was long and exploratory, but she pulled back. "What I was going to ask is, can we try again? All the things I worried about before are still there, but I've missed you."

He turned them so her back was against the wall. "What worried you?"

"The biggest one is gone. I think I'm capable of making a commitment and sticking to it."

"So you don't believe you're destined to marry Ben?"

Diana closed her eyes. "I hope, really hope, that Maia wasn't lying – either to get back at April or to make me 'happy.'"

"I wondered about that. And I wished to God she'd decided to tell you it was me you were destined for."

"I think that Jordan distributing the Promicin and the Marked, between them, may have altered the future she saw."

"A much better possibility." Marco kissed her quietly, then asked, "The other big things?"

"Thing, really. Age."

"Ah."

"You're a little younger than I am."

"A little."

She looked at him sharply.

"Diana, I have higher clearances for the personnel databases than the director does. I looked you up the day I met you."

"I've never asked you what year you were born."

He kissed her ear and whispered, "I'm twelve years, six months, and nine days younger than you are." He traced his tongue down to her jaw and nibbled his way over to her mouth. After another deep kiss, he whispered in her other ear, "I wanted you the first time I saw you. I fell in love with you the first time I talked to you. I waited over two years…" She groaned and Marco pulled her closer. "Two years just to be taken seriously by you. It was over a year after that before you asked me to dinner with you and Maia."

"It doesn't scare you, Marco? The age difference, the responsibility? Maia says there's a war coming."

"I know. If her diaries are right, the age difference won't matter. I die long before you do." He smiled at her and scraped his teeth down her neck. At her gasp, he continued, "Responsibility? I'm the youngest department head at NTAC, and I was a department head before I was transferred to NTAC. It's never scared me." Marco tongued her clavicle, and Diana whimpered. "Having a ready-made family? Diana, I'm Italian. We live for family."

Diana slid her hands up his neck and surged against him for a full body kiss. She squeaked when she felt Marco's hand glide her skirt up her thigh.

He opened his hands and took a step backward. "I can take us back to NTAC, right now. Give you time to think. Just say the word. But I've waited five years to make love to you. I don't want to wait a minute more."

Diana hadn't realized how much his glasses masked. The need was naked in his eyes and so was the love.

"The word is 'risk.'" She grabbed his shirt tail and tugged him closer.

"Risk? As in risking getting caught?" His hands slipped around her hips and drew her to him.

She could feel the heat and size of him through their clothes. "Right here, right now." Diana wondered why he held back from her. She opened a button on his shirt and pressed a kiss to the bare skin. He hissed in a breath. Another button, another kiss and she grinned as the hair on his chest tickled her nose.

He cupped her chin with his hand and tilted her face up. "Diana?"

"Love. The word is love."

One hand went behind her head to protect it as he pushed her against the wall. Diana hadn't realized how strong he was under the loose shirts and jackets he wore. Marco lifted her leg up and grabbed the edge of her panties. He twisted until the elastic broke and she was open to him.

Not once had his eyes left hers, and Diana found herself wondering why she had waited so long to come to him; why she had broken his heart in the first place. She tried to reach between them to open his pants, but the angle didn't work.

"Put your arms around my neck."

She did and felt his fingers press against her clit for a moment. She licked his neck, teased his earlobes with her teeth. Finally, she heard his zipper.

Marco captured her mouth in a messy, wonderful kiss as he thrust into her.

She was wet and open to him. "Oh, Marco, please."

His hips began to move, and Diana was filled. She marveled at the rich, quiet sounds he made. Marco's hands were full, but his mouth was restless and he was kissing and licking and sucking every inch of her skin he could reach.

Diana felt her walls contracting around his thick cock. She jumped a little and wrapped her legs tightly. He moaned and sucked at a spot on her neck that seemed to be wired straight to her clit.

She was quaking as her orgasm built. She seized his ears and turned his lips to hers. Marco's tongue flicked into her mouth in time to the thrust of his hips.

As she came, Diana heard her voice echoing around the quiet piazza, and Marco's orgasm overtook him about the same time the laughter did.

"Oh, my goddess. I never pegged you for a screamer." He was laughing softly. A flashlight shone on his face, and he moved his body to shield her from it. Diana could see his blush.

The policeman seemed very polite. Diana had taken German to fulfill her language requirement, so, frankly, she had no clue about the Italian that Marco and the cop were babbling away in.

When the officer wandered off, to Marco's final "Si, si," Diana finally said, "I take it we're not arrested?"

"No, but I promised to bring you and Maia to Sunday dinner in two weeks."

"What?"

"He's my cousin. Guillermo complimented me on my fine taste in women's legs, said he hoped next time he'd get to see your face, and to please keep it down even if we were under San Marco's gate."

Diana began to giggle helplessly. Her torn panties had settled around one ankle, and she stepped out of them as Marco finished putting himself back together.

"I hope you still have my glasses."

"I tucked them in your jacket pocket." Marco found them and put them on.

Diana put her panties into his pocket in their place. "What did you call me?"

"A screamer?"

"Before that. Or were you just praying?"

"I'm a good lapsed Catholic. I never pray." He tilted her chin up again and looked at her in awe. "My goddess. I've been calling you that for a very, very long time. At least in my own head, I have."

"How can you trust me again?"

"I love you." He bit his lip. "There are two things we need to talk about."

"All right." Diana looked wary.

"I hadn't expected to make love to you when we left the office. No condom." He looked sick. "We shouldn't have… I mean, I pressured…"

"I've been taking responsibility for my own actions, and my own birth control, since you were three. No diseases?" He shook his head vehemently. She continued, "Then I think we're fine. And if something did happen, we'll talk about it. What's the other thing?"

"It's a little more amusing, I hope. I can only take us back to the Theory Room. Brady's bound to be back from his coffee break."

"He's seen you do this before?"

"Even loaned me his pet rat for my first attempt at moving something living with me."

"Tell me I wasn't the first human trial?"

His mouth quirked. "I wish I could."

Diana mock-glared at him. "We can just tell him you took me somewhere to talk." She took in the look on his face. "Can't we?"

His fingers traced gently down her throat. "I think I may have left a couple of marks."

"The Acting Director of NTAC returns from parts unknown with her boy toy…" Marco laughed at that as Diana continued, "and a hickey."

He held up two fingers.

She rolled her eyes and said, "Two hickeys."

"You could tell them I'm your fiancé. Lots of things become more acceptable when you're engaged."

"Did you just propose?"

"I've been proposing to you since The 4400 returned to the present. You just haven't heard it before." He put an arm around her and walked her back to the wall. Marco held her close and felt the brick and stone at his back become drywall.

Diana looked at him and said, "Yes, Marco." She kissed him softly, but thoroughly and left the room.

Brady looked at the disheveled but happy woman who walked out of his office and then turned to Marco who was staring after her in amazement. "You have a date with Skouris? Cool!"

Marco grinned. "I have a _life_ with Skouris. Way cool!"


End file.
